Low Voltage Directive certification (LVD 2014/35/EU)

Low Voltage Directive certification is what the market calls a route that has no certifier. Directive 2014/35/EU offers one conformity assessment procedure, Module A in Annex III, and no Notified Body takes part: the manufacturer tests, compiles the technical documentation and signs the EU declaration of conformity alone. What you buy from a laboratory is the test report to the harmonised standard for the product: EN 60335-1 with its Part 2 sheet for household appliances, EN 62368-1 for audio, video and ICT equipment, EN 60598-1 for luminaires, EN 61010-1 for laboratory and measuring equipment. The scope is equipment rated 50 to 1000 V AC or 75 to 1500 V DC, minus the Annex II exclusions.

Which products fall under the Low Voltage Directive?

Any electrical equipment designed for a rated input or output voltage between 50 and 1000 V AC or 75 and 1500 V DC, for consumer or professional use: appliances, luminaires, cables, power supplies, switchgear, motors, cord sets. The rating is what counts; voltages that appear inside the enclosure do not.

Annex II takes nine entries out: equipment for use in an explosive atmosphere (ATEX 2014/34/EU covers it), equipment for radiology and medical purposes, electrical parts for goods and passenger lifts, electricity meters, plugs and socket outlets for domestic use, electric fence controllers, radio-electrical interference, specialised equipment for ships, aircraft and railways that follows international safety provisions, and custom-built evaluation kits for research facilities.

Two overlaps decide more files than the exclusions do. A mains product with a radio module falls under the Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU, which absorbs the LVD safety objectives, so it is not declared under the LVD separately; a machine with a motor is declared under the Machinery Directive, and the LVD Guide puts hand-held power tools and lawnmowers there too. The other way round: a battery device below 50 V is outside the LVD, but the charger or adapter shipped with it is inside. The laptop that "needs no LVD" still needs its power supply tested.

Is there a Notified Body for Low Voltage Directive compliance?

No. The Commission states it flatly: the LVD does not require notified bodies, and the manufacturer alone determines conformity through Module A, internal production control. The CE mark on an LVD product must not be followed by a four-digit body number.

So LVD testing is what certification means on this page: electrical safety testing for CE marking at an accredited laboratory, to a harmonised standard whose reference is published in the Official Journal. Only the listed edition carries presumption of conformity under Article 12. The list sits in Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/2723 and its amendments, and it is edition-specific: EN 62368-1 replaced EN 60950-1 and EN 60065 for IT and audio equipment in December 2020, and a report to one of the old standards supports nothing.

The Commission also warns about voluntary certificates: they are not a recognised means of proving compliance, they have no value at customs or in a surveillance check, and they must not carry a CE mark. We still see clients pay for a "CE certificate" from a certification body, then discover that the importer wants the test report and the declaration, which the certificate does not replace.

What goes in the technical file and the LVD declaration of conformity?

Annex III point 2 lists the file: a general description, design and manufacturing drawings and circuit diagrams, the explanations needed to read them, the harmonised standards applied in full or in part, design calculations and examinations, and the test reports. It must include an adequate analysis and assessment of the risks. You keep it, with the declaration, for ten years after the equipment is placed on the market.

The EU declaration of conformity follows the Annex IV model: product identification, the manufacturer or authorised representative, the sentence that it is issued under the manufacturer's sole responsibility, the object of the declaration, the Union acts it conforms to, the harmonised standards used, and a signature. Article 15 requires a single declaration covering every act that applies, so LVD, the EMC Directive 2014/30/EU and RoHS go on one sheet, translated into the languages the member state of sale requires.

Four things stop LVD files at import, in the order we meet them. A rating plate missing the type or serial number and the manufacturer's name and postal address, which Article 6(5) and 6(6) require on the product itself. A file with test reports but no risk assessment, which Annex III makes mandatory. A CB report to an edition older than the one in the Official Journal. And a plug the destination country does not use: plugs for domestic use sit outside the directive because Europe has no harmonised plug system, so the report says nothing about them and the importer's national rules apply.

Can the same report serve EAC, G-Mark and UKCA?

Largely yes, because all four regimes reference the same IEC standards. A CB test report from an accredited laboratory under the IECEE CB Scheme is the format they all read, with national deviations tested as a supplement. Plan the test campaign for every target market at once; a report ordered for Europe alone gets re-tested for each market that follows.

In the Eurasian Economic Union the safety document is an EAC certificate under TR CU 004/2011 on low-voltage equipment, with the same voltage bands as the LVD, issued together with TR CU 020/2011 on electromagnetic compatibility. Household appliances are on the certification list, so a declaration is not an option and the certificate comes from a body listed by Rosakkreditatsiya. In the Gulf, the G-Mark regulation BD-142004-01 uses the identical 50 to 1000 V AC and 75 to 1500 V DC scope; appliances on its regulated list need a Gulf Type Examination from a GSO-notified body, which checks the CB report against the GSO edition and the Gulf plug and voltage deviations.

Great Britain regulates the same scope with the same exclusion list under the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, behind UKCA marking. Four to twelve weeks is the range for Low Voltage Directive compliance on a straightforward product, and most of it is laboratory scheduling, so book the EMC test under Directive 2014/30/EU in the same session.

Where the same safety report is reused